Sunday, October 16, 2016

19 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, with Footnotes. #1

Edgar Degas
At the Mirror, c. 1889
Pastel on paper
49 x 64 cm
Kunsthalle, Hamburg

Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) was a French artist famous for his paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings. He is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, although he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist. He was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his renditions of dancers, racecourse subjects and female nudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and for their portrayal of human isolation.

At the beginning of his career, Degas wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classic art. In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life. Moe

Eugen von Blaas, 1843 - 1931, AUSTRIAN
A STOLEN GLANCE, c. 1896
Oil on panel
78 by 39cm., 30¾ by 15¼in
Private Collection

Eugene de Blaas, (24 July 1843 – 10 February 1932), was an Italian painter in the school known as Academic Classicism. He was born at Albano, near Rome, to Austrian parents. His father Karl, also a painter, was his teacher. The family moved to Venice when Karl became Professor at the Academy of Venice. He often painted scenes in Venice, but also portraits and religious paintings.

Eugene de Blaas (1843 - 1931)
The Water Carrier, c. 1908
Oil on Canvas
75 x 44
Private Collection

His colorful and rather theatrical period images of Venetian society, e.g. On the Balcony (1877; Private Collection), were quite different compared to delicate pastels and etchings of the courtyards, balcony and canals of modern Venice.

Eugene de Blaas' paintings were exhibited at the Royal Academy, Fine Art Society, New Gallery and Arthur Tooth and Sons Gallery in London, and also at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. More

Gaetano Bellei, (Italian, 1857-1922)
Giornata di pioggia (Rainy day), c. 1919
Oil on canvas
151.5 x 111cm (59 5/8 x 43 11/16in)
Private Collection

Capturing something of the Belle Époque, Bellei painted a number of large canvases which feature elegant women, either set in glamorous interiors, such as In the theatre and Off to the Masquerade, or battered by the elements, such as Gust of wind  and A windy day. These works allow the artist to demonstrate his skill in depicting cloth and costume. More

Gaetano Bellei was an Italian Academic Painter who was born in 1857. He later died in 1922 in the same city. He enhanced his artistic talent by learning art from Adeodato Malatesta and Comrade of John Muzzioli. When he was 24 year old, he won the Retired Potetti due which he was able to visit Rome to study arts. One of his most notable masterpieces is Rizpah which he completed there.

He took part in many local exhibitions in Florence. Afterwards, he came back to his native city became a professor in the Institute of Fine Arts Designer Polite. He was a master of fine art and used to use palette as a bright, fresh and creative tool. He was also a brilliant portrait artist. He has held many art exhibitions throughout his life, one such notable art exhibition was held in London in 1822 at The Royal Academy. More on Gaetano Bellei

Istvan Szonyi (1894-1960)
Reclining Nude
Oil on canvas
19 3/4 x 23 3/4 in (50.1 x 60.3 cm)
Private Collection

István Szőnyi (1894-1960) was a Hungarian painter noted for works such as The Bend of the Danube and Zebegény. He and his family rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Hence they were declared Righteous Among the Nations on October 2, 1984. István Szőnyi was one of the most gifted members of the Nagybánya group. More

Philip Krevoruck, (1919-1999)
Women Watching, circa 1940
Oil on canvas
20 x 16 in (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Private Collection

Philip Krevoruck (1919-1999)  was born January 26, 1919 in Fitchburg, MA. He was active/lived in New York, Massachusetts / China. He is known for abstract urban and industrial scene painting. Krevoruck completed 4 years of college prior to WWII and taught art. The artist is well versed in a variety of extraordinary styles. Particularly known for his WPA subjects, Krevoruck's work revealed a realistic portrayal of American life, exposing the true conditions of the urban city, industrial work environments and the everyday scenes of working class Americans. Krevoruck painted the faces of his fellow countrymen, the strengths, struggles, tribulations and stoic lives of everyday men and women. More

Giovanni Boldini, (1842–1931)
Lina Cavalieri, c. 1901
Oil on canvas
Private collection

Natalina "Lina" Cavalieri (1874-1944) was an Italian opera soprano singer, actress, and monologist. She was painted by the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini (acquired by Maurice Rothschild) and by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947). The latter is now the property of the Metropolitan Opera, the gift of Nicholas Meredith Turner in memory of his wife, the soprano Jessica Dragonette. Hers is the face that appears repeatedly, obsessively, in Piero Fornasetti's designs. More

Giovanni Boldini (Italian, 1842-1931)
Portrait of Lina Cavalieri, c. 1901-1902
Black chalk
12.5 x 19.5cm (4 15/16 x 7 11/16in).
Private collection

Giovanni Boldini (31 December 1842 in Ferrara, Italy – 11 July 1931 in Paris, France) was an Italian genre and portrait painter. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting. Boldini was born in Ferrara, the son of a painter of religious subjects, and in 1862 went to Florence for six years to study and pursue painting. He only infrequently attended classes at the Academy of Fine Arts, but in Florence, met other realist painters known as the Macchiaioli, who were Italian precursors to Impressionism. 

Moving to London, Boldini attained success as a portraitist. He completed portraits of premier members of society. From 1872 he lived in Paris, where he became a friend of Edgar Degas. He also became the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris in the late 19th century. He was nominated commissioner of the Italian section of the Paris Exposition in 1889, and received the Légion d'honneur for this appointment.

A Boldini portrait of his former muse Marthe de Florian, a French actress, was discovered in a Paris flat in late 2010, hidden away from view on the premises that were unvisited for 70 years. The portrait has never been listed, exhibited or published and the flat belonged to de Florian's granddaughter who went to live in the South of France at the outbreak of the Second World War and never returned. A love-note and a biographical reference to the work painted in 1888, when the actress was 24, cemented its authenticity. The full length portrait of the lady in the same clothing and accessories, but less provocative, hangs in the New Orleans Museum of Art. More

Pál Fried (Hungarian 1893-1976) 
Woman with Guitar and Flamenco Dancer 
Oil on canvas 
26 x 24 in (66 x 61 cm)
Private Collection

Pál Fried (16 June 1893 in Hungary – 6 March 1976 in New York City) was a Hungarian artist. His oil paintings were usually of dancers, nudes, and portraits, and his subjects were almost always women, although he also painted Paris, seascapes, and cowboys and landscapes of the American West. He signed his paintings, as is usual in Hungarian, with his surname first as "Fried Pál". At times, this particular artist would make several, almost identical versions of the same oil painting, except he would use slightly different facial expressions and/or would try different colour schemes.

Fried immigrated to the United States in 1946 after World War II, and became a U.S. citizen in 1953. He lived in Los Angeles and New York City. more

Peter Doig
100 Years Ago (Carrera), 2001
Oil on canvas
229 x 358.5 cm
90 1/8 x 141 1/8 in
 Collection Centre Pompidou

Peter Doig's paintings have a tendency to disorientate us, even when they depict recognisable imagery such as figures and buildings. We are often plunged into an unreliable world of reflections, sometimes literally when we are presented with the icy lakes and watery depths . More

Peter Doig (born 17 April 1959) is a Scottish painter. One of the most renowned living figurative painters, he has settled in Trinidad since 2002. Peter Doig was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1962 he moved with his family to Trinidad, where his father worked with a shipping and trading company, and then in 1966 to Canada. He moved to London to study at the Wimbledon School of Art in 1979-80, Saint Martin's School of Art, from 1980 to 1983, and Chelsea School of Art, in 1989-90, where he received an MA. In 1989, the artist held a part-time job as a dresser at the English National Opera.

Doig was invited to return to Trinidad in 2000, to take up an artist's residency with his friend and fellow painter Chris Ofili. In 2002, Doig moved back to the island, where he set up a studio at the Caribbean Contemporary Arts Centre near Port of Spain. He also became professor at the Fine Arts Academy in Düsseldorf, Germany. More

01 Paintings, PORTRAIT OF A LADY., with Footnotes. #37, (1859-1919)
Profile of a Woman, c. 1900
Oil on canvas
45.4 x 34.4 cm
Private Collection

Theodor Grust (1859-1919) was a German genre and porcelain painter from the Saxon town Meissen. Grust studied at the Academy in Dresden as a pupil of Theodor Grosse. Later he went to Munich. The artist travelled to Belgium and to the Netherlands before he settled down in his hometown Meissen. Grust worked there in the famous porcelain manufacture, where he created abstract and linear designs in the style of Henry van de Velde and pushed forward the development of Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) in the factory. As a genre painter the artist focused on bourgeois interiors. He was inspired by the great Flemish masters of this genre. More on Theodor Grust

Theodor Grust, (1859-1919)
Red Cross Nurse, late 19th/early 20th century
oil on canvas
45.5 x 35.7 cm
Private Collection

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun,  (1755–1842) 
Self-portrait in a Straw Hat, c. 1782
Oil on canvas
97.8 × 70.5 cm (38.5 × 27.8 in)
National Gallery

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (Marie Élisabeth Louise; 16 April 1755 – 30 March 1842), also known as Madame Lebrun, was a prominent French painter.

Her artistic style is generally considered part of the aftermath of Rococo, while she often adopts a neoclassical style. Vigée Le Brun cannot be considered a pure Neoclassicist, however, in that she creates mostly portraits in Neoclassical dress rather than the History painting. While serving as the portrait painter to Marie Antoinette, Vigée Le Brun works purely in Rococo in both her color and style choices.

Vigée Le Brun left a legacy of 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. In addition to private collections, her works may be found at major museums, such as the Hermitage Museum, London's National Gallery, and museums in continental Europe and the United States. More on Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842) 
Self-portrait, c. 1781-1782
Oil on canvas
64.8 × 54 cm (25.5 × 21.3 in)
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, United States

Stylistically, Vigée Le Brun avoided both the lightness of Late Rococo and the artifice of Neo-Classicism, countering both with a modulated naturalism. She became an artist against great odds, as did any woman in late-18th-century Paris, and aided by the patronage of Marie Antoinette, went on to thrive in a nine-lives, astutely managed sort of way. But her royal ties made her a target of the press, as did her high prices and her gender. She wisely fled France at the start of the revolution. More

Romualdo Locatelli (Italian, 1905-1943)
Risveglio/Awakening
Oil on canvas
117.5 x 91cm (46 1/4 x 35 13/16in).
Private Collection

For Locatelli there are no problems beyond the beauty of the abundance of life. One will find no depth and metaphysical ideas in his work. In a spontaneous manner he reveals the beauty of the body and nature. Here there is no sadness and sorrow that are shown, but their opposite, the beauty and happiness of the world. Here are no complicated voices from a mysterious psyche but here is presented pure pleasure of the senses. (V. N. De Javabode, 1939) 

Romualdo Locatelli ( Bergamo , 1905 - Manila , 1943?) Was an Italian painter. Born into a family of painters and decorators, in whose workshop was formed nine artists. He learnt from his father the art of restoration and decoration. He applied to the art school Andrea Fantoni, then to Pontian Loverini Accademia Carrara. 

A fall from the scaffolding for the wall decoration of a church seriously compromising the health of his father, and probably influences the choice of Romualdo moving permanently to painting at the easel and in the studio. His fame began when he was just seventeen with his work PAIN, which portrayed the sick and ailing father. 

Driven by an insatiable wanderlust Romualdo travels to Sardinia, Abruzzo, Tuscany and as far as Africa, with his friend Ernesto Quarter Marchiò. He then moved to Rome, where Prince Umberto of Savoy commissioned the portraits of his children Vittorio Emanuele and Maria Pia. Despite the extreme success he achieved in the capital with his studio in via Margutta, he decides to move to the East. In 1939 he left Indonesia, first in Jakarta and then to Bali, where he became friends with the Italian-Egyptian painter Emilio Ambron. Numerous friendships in diplomatic circles enabled him to exhibit in New York city in 1941. 

Eventually Romualdo was no longer able to work; and his only entertainment was to go hunting. On February 24, 1943 went out hunting and did not return. More on Romualdo Locatelli

Sir James Jebusa Shannon, RA, RBA, RHA (British, 1862-1923)
Contemplation, circa 1905-1910
Oil on canvas
63 x 75cm (24 13/16 x 29 1/2in)
Private Collection

Sir James Jebusa Shannon RA (1862–1923), Anglo-American artist, was born in Auburn, New York, and at the age of eight was taken by his parents to Canada.

When he was sixteen, he went to England, where he studied at South Kensington, and after three years won the gold medal for figure painting. His portrait of the Hon. Horatia Stopford, one of the queen's maids of honour, attracted attention at the Royal Academy in 1881, and in 1887 his portrait of Henry Vigne in hunting costume was one of the successes of the exhibition, subsequently securing medals for the artist at Paris, Berlin, and Vienna.

Sir James Jebusa Shannon, RA, RBA, RHA (British, 1862-1923)
The Flower Girl, c. 1900
Oil paint on canvas
838 x 660 mm
frame: 1090 x 1110 x 150 m
Tate

The Flower Girl; painted while the artist and his family were on holiday at Eastbourne in 1900. The woman was a flower girl whom they met regularly every morning on their way down to the beach; she consented to sit to Shannon in her ordinary working clothes and is shown nursing her baby. The artist's daughter Kitty recalls that her father told the flower girl to come ‘exactly as you are, baby, basket of flowers, the white blouse with the big black spots and old battered straw hat’.More on this painting

He soon became one of the leading portrait painters in London. He was one of the first members of the New English Art Club, a founder member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and in 1897 was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and RA in 1909. His picture, "The Flower Girl", was bought in 1901 for the National Gallery of British Art (above). Shannon has paintings in the collection of a several British institutions including Sheffield, Derby Art Gallery, Glasgow Museum and Bradford Museum. More

John Opie, (1761–1807) 
Mary Wollstonecraft, circa 1797
Oil on canvas
30 1/4 in. x 25 1/4 in. (768 mm x 641 mm)
National Portrait Gallery, London

Mary Wollstonecraft (27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.

Wollstonecraft married the philosopher William Godwin, one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement. Wollstonecraft died at the age of 38, eleven days after giving birth to her second daughter, leaving behind several unfinished manuscripts. This daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, became an accomplished writer herself, as Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. More on Mary Wollstonecraft

John Opie RA (16 May 1761 – 9 April 1807) was a Cornish historical and portrait painter. He painted many great men and women of his day, including members of the British Royal Family, and others who were most notable in the artistic and literary professions.

Born in Trevellas, England, he showed a precocious talent for drawing and mathematics. His father, however, did not encourage his abilities, and apprenticed him to his own trade of carpentry. Opie's artistic abilities eventually came to the attention of Dr John Wolcot, who recognising his great talent. Wolcot became Opie's mentor, buying him out of his apprenticeship and insisting that he come to live at his home in Truro. Wolcot provided invaluable encouragement, advice, tuition and practical help in the advancement of his early career, including obtaining many commissions for work.

Opie's work, after an initial burst of popularity, rapidly fell out of fashion. In response to this he began to work on improving his technique, while at the same time seeking to supplement his early education, and to polish his provincial manners by mixing in cultivated and learned circles. In 1786 he exhibited his first important historical subject, the Assassination of James I, and in the following year the Murder of Rizzio, a work whose merit was recognized by his immediate election as associate of the Royal Academy. More on John Opie

Richard Rothwell (1800–1868)
Portrait of Mary Shelley, c. 1840
National Portrait Gallery

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. More on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Richard Rothwell (20 November 1800 – 13 September 1868) was a nineteenth-century Irish portrait and genre painter. Rothwell was born in Athlone, Ireland to James and Elizabeth and was the oldest of their seven children. He trained to become a painter at the Dublin Society's school from 1814 until 1820 and won a silver medal for his work. At the age of 24, he was made a member of the newly established Royal Hibernian Academy and exhibited portraits there from 1826 to 1829. He subsequently moved to London and worked as a studio assistant to Thomas Lawrence. When Lawrence died in 1830, Rothwell completed many of his unfinished works and was poised to become the next foremost portrait painter in Britain and Ireland. From 1831 to 1834, Rothwell toured Italy to study Italian art so that he could paint history paintings. When he returned to London, his popularity had evaporated. Rothwell lived and exhibited works in Ireland, the United States, London, and Italy, but he never again achieved the same level of popularity he had reached in the late 1820s. More on Richard Rothwell

Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa, 1871 - 1959
Démarche gitane (Gypsies Andares), c. 1902
Oil on canvas
113.5 x 146 cm
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

By the nineteenth century, Spain had embraced Gypsy myth and lore. The Romantics were in awe of the gypsies for their otherworldliness and seeming ability to commune with nature, while the following generation of artists and writers, driven by patriotism in the wake of Spain's colonial losses, venerated the gypsy as the quintessential icon of Spanish identity. Nonell, Zuloaga, and Solana were among Anglada's contemporaries who endowed the gitana with a gravitas, at times playful, at times austere, that linked her inextricably with Spain's psyche.

Painted circa 1902, the present work is amongst the first paintings by the artist dedicated to this subject. Depicting the gypsy as a synthesis of brilliant colours and rhythmic forms, Anglada lifts her out of reality to a wholly aesthetic plane. The colours are mesmeric, while the striking rhythmical forms have a musicality about them which is reminiscent of the gypsy sub-culture most nobly embodied by dance and flamenco. More on this painting

Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa (1871–1959), known in Catalan as Hermenegild (or Hermen) Anglada Caramasa, was a Catalan and Balearic Spanish painter.

Born in Barcelona, he studied there at the Llotja School. His early work had the clear academic imprint of his teacher, Modest Urgell. In 1894 he moved to Paris, and studied at the Académie Julian. He adopted a more personal style, after that of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, with their depictions of nocturnal and interior subjects. But his work was also marked by the intense colors which presaged the arrival of Fauvism. Lively brushwork reveals strong Oriental and Arab influences. Allied with the Vienna Secession movement, his decorative style draws comparison to Gustav Klimt.

He died in Pollença, on the island of Majorca, and is commemorated by a bronze bust on the 'Pine Walk' at Port de Pollença. More on Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa

Franz von Stuck, 1863 - 1928, GERMAN
DOMINO
Oil on board
82.5 by 37.5cm., 32½ by 14¾in
Private Collection

As masquerades flourished in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe, Domino was probably the most common mask of all. Typical of the Venetian Carnival, it consisted of a black mask covering only the eyes and was sometimes worn with a cloak over the dress. Shown here held by the model! More on this painting

Franz Stuck (February 23, 1863 – August 30, 1928) was a German painter, sculptor, engraver, and architect. Born at Tettenweis near Passau, Stuck displayed an affinity for drawing and caricature from an early age. To begin his artistic education he relocated in 1878 to Munich, where he would settle for life. From 1881 to 1885 Stuck attended the Munich Academy.
In 1889 he exhibited his first paintings at the Munich Glass Palace, winning a gold medal for The Guardian of Paradise. In 1892 Stuck co-founded the Munich Secession, and also executed his first sculpture, Athlete. The next year he won further acclaim with the critical and public success of what is now his most famous work, the painting The Sin. Also during 1893, Stuck was awarded a gold medal for painting at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and was appointed to a royal professorship. In 1895 he began teaching painting at the Munich Academy.

Having attained much fame by this time, Stuck was ennobled on December 9, 1905 and would receive further public honours from around Europe during the remainder of his life. He continued to be well respected among young artists as professor at the Munich Academy, even after his artistic styles became unfashionable. More on Franz von Stuck



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